Detective Conan in the Arab World

The Detective Conan anime was first dubbed in the Arab World in 1998 and was aired on Qatar TV, and on March 31st 2000, the first episode was broadcast on Spacetoon. Currently the latest season shows first only on SpaceToon or its sister channel SpacePower. The series is dubbed by the most famous anime dubbing centre in the region, Venus Centre (مركز الزهرة Markaz Az-Zuhra).

The Detective Conan series has became very popular in the Arab world and is one of the best ranked animes of all time. Venus Centre continues dubbing Detective Conan. As of November 2014, up to 400+ episodes are dubbed.

Most of the characters kept their main names, but names with four syllables are often reduced to two syllables (i.e. Mitsuhiko is called ميتسو Mitso). Most of characters only have a given name and not a family name or vice versa. Most of the cases characters kept their original Japanese names as well, but some are changed because they sound similar to another character (e.g Yuuko from Episode 3 was renamed شوكو Shuko because it sounded similar to Yoko Okino's name. All of the TV specials are always divided into two or four seasons and only the first four films have been dubbed so far.

The opening and ending song from season 1 to season 4 were different from the original Japanese intro. In season 5 to the season 8, a remix of the previous tune with the same lyrics was used. Both the endings were simply the tune instrumental. The first four seasons used a logo which is simply the Detective Conan in Arabic in red on a cross-hair. The current logo (used from season 5 onwards) is very similar, but the cross-hair is different.

The dubbed show sometimes used Japanese themes:

An instrumental version of Mune ga doki doki accompanying a creditless version of the opening of the first episode aired unedited.

The introductory 30-second parts of episodes with the first, third and fourth opening themes were left in, then cutting before the Japanese vocal part directly to the episode. Those introductory parts were removed from episodes using the second

Insert songs in the first three seasons (episodes 1-127) were left in using their vocal versions. Subsequent episodes would lower the volume of the BGM or replace it, or in the case of endings edit that part out entirely.

The movies kept the endings, using instrumental versions. An exception is the third movie's ending which had the B'z song start normally, then fading to the first movie's ending theme.

When the dubs for the episodes 1-125 aired between 1998 and 2002, the censorship was somehow light, focusing on removing excessive gore, and digitally editing scenes with women clothes to have the skirts cover the knees after the same dubbing studio received backlash over Nadia's Blue Water dub (1995) which didn't edit the revealing heroine's outfit and even kept some scenes with nudes - also midst a general negative perception of anime due to the airing of Onisamaa e and an edited version of Grave of the Fireflies as children programs earlier.

The themes weren't affected: the audio generally matches the original unedited version, with a generally accurate translation that creatively replaces some problematic words for the target audience ("Hell" as "Where the Dead Go", "Devil" as "Evil One", alcoholic beverages as "Drinks", "fiancé" for "boyfriend/girlfriend", "drunk" as "needing sleep" but otherwise unedited). Unlike several European dubs, the episodes 12, 35, and the ending of 5O made it to the Arabic dub - references to suicide, romance, characters being unfaithful partners, or nude were kept. Some gory cuts made it but sped-up. Blood was generally uncensored. Positions of authorities (diplomats, prime ministers, senators) would get translated though as the generic "official". Some occultism stars and imagery (the goat for example), and manjis (as well as actual swatsikas in other works by the same dub house) were removed as well.

The show went on to become the center of a controversy surrounding multiple real-life suicide cases involving children imitating the suicide case in episode 26, as well as the Pokémon controversy (originally started by the trading cards being used for "gambling") where local religious clerics would try and associate elements of anime with satanism and degrading youth's education.

The studio would then adopt an ultra-conservative censorship, going as far as editing out entire scenes with women without long pants (skirts, jupes, and clothes exposing top cleavage, while tolerated before, are no longer allowed) and replacing them with long frozen frames, criminal confessions rewritten to have almost the same script about remorse and how awful they are instead of the actual motives, Black Organisation code names (save for Gin, and "Belmutt") altered or replaced to remove alcohol references starting with episode 126 onward (Vodka becoming Vokka), and even altering plot-relevant episodes featuring them and introducing several continuity errors (like making Gin a "leader of the BO" who "knows about Sherry's (adult) face and that little boy") which wouldn't be fixed until much later episodes are accurately translated. Any references to suicide or romance was removed, or occasionally replaced with "Ran, so when is your wedding taking place?".

The show wouldn't be shown on as much networks as before afterwards, most of the high-profile voice actors would go elsewhere, and the dub studio produced an ultra-censored abridged dub with the whole plot replaced with non-stop ultra-conservative religious preaching and all of the music, Japanese names, and adult women would be removed altogether (which caused a controversy of its own on mainstream media over the religious message and its medium, and the dub studio's translation ethics -even though the religious dub was completely separate from the main dub). This dub was produced and endorsed by the same company that did the Arabic dubs. Additionally, some of the unaired Japanese material (like the visuals for the original openings) would be used in abridged dubs for toys, toothpaste, pens, among others. Fans would take the Arabic audio and try fitting it on uncensored Japanese raws and upload it online.

Initially dismissing negative fan reception as "overly kiddy", claiming the dub was targeting a children audience, the studio aimed to target a teen audience much later starting with episode 235 onward, where, while some episodes are still heavily censored, many themes are allowed again, and women with skirts are - and ones with clothes not reaching knees or covering enough cleavage would have some colored overlay covering it.